Reliable partners have a face, which – we know it since 2007 – has never been the case with the EU. The lack of a Constitution, this can be said without exaggeration, was the beginning of the end of the political EU. After the miscarriages in France and the Netherlands, the so-called “period of reflection” did not lead to a constructive roadmap. Not even the fiftieth birthday of the Rome Treaties (celebrated with pomp and circumstance) could bring the institutional lethargy to an end. The citizens were the main losers. They realised that something is going on ‘in Brussels’ that affected their everyday life, be it at the airport, at work or at home, when buying cigarettes, watching the news, fishing, asking for a new passport and so on. But they did not know – could not know – what this ‘in Brussels’ exactly ment.

The faceless Union was never able to answer such question in a transparent way.

Who actually decided what in Europe? And how? To whom are all these ‘eurocrats’ accountable? How far could they go? How could we, the citizens, participate in European politics? And where are our taxes going to? The faceless Union was never able to answer such question in a transparent way. Hence, the grievances of the citizens were turning into frustration, disorientation and passivity, and later on more and more into blunt anger and deep alienation. The political dimension of the EU and with it the ‘european era’, slowly but surely, became objects of bitter derision.

Reliable partners communicate – on an equal level. Ironically, the EU became aware of this wisdom in the beginning of the 21st century. Considerable efforts were made in order to ‘close the communication gap’ between the Union and the citizens: we can find an interesting passage in the introduction of the Commissions ‘Whitepaper on a European Communication Policy’ (2006):

“The gap between the European Union and its citizens is widely recognised. In Eurobarometer opinion polls carried out in recent years, many of the people interviewed say they know little about the EU and feel they have little say in its decision-making process. Communication is essential to a healthy democracy. It is a two-way street. Democracy can flourish only if citizens know what is going on, and are able to participate fully.”

There is a small but fateful problem with the “two-way” idea of communication. The EU, as announced in the White Paper, has brought up important means to explain Europe to the citizens. But what was done in order to meet the other direction of communication, the one from the citizens to the EU-institutions? Not much. The Constitution would have offered some promising tools, such as the citizen’s initiative (art. 47.4), but it never entered into force.

The Union remained an obscure construction that became more and more schizophrenic: it desperately sought to transform its citizens into euro-political animals and simultaneously refused to give them institutionalised access to European policy-making.

Today we know that the reform of the Westphalian state system has failed. We painfully learned that even in 2057 a political system needs a Constitution, otherwise it becomes inoperable, alienating, and looses its raison d’être.

This article was initially published in the European decline version of the Daily European. See the entire newspaper in pdf format here.